GAYDAR AT THE GALLERY

Awakening Faun (1914)

Keith Haring. David Hockney. Robert Mapplethorpe. I am familiar with the work of many gay artists. Other artists’ sexuality I only discovered by chance. I go to an art museum, see a work I like, Google the painter or sculptor and, every so often, I stumble upon the fact they are (or were) gay. Marsden Hartley. Maurice Sendak. The works speak for themselves but still I feel a sense of pride that the artist is/was “one of us.”

 

Last fall , I discovered another gay artist while wandering through the Ateneum, an art museum in Helsinki. Unlike Hartley who’s best known for his landscapes or Sendak, known for Wild Things, the pieces I saw on exhibit by Magnus Enckell strongly suggested the artist might be gay. Born in Hamina, Finland in 1870 and dying in Stockholm in 1925, some of Enckell’s bright paintings focused on the naked or semi-naked male form when for most of art history so  many artists have been seemingly obsessed with female nudes. 

 

Enckell’s first oil painting on exhibit that made me take notice was Awakening Faun from 1914, the figure being a young, pretty, lean, muscular male in repose, naked except for an orange fabric draped over his privates. The young man looks contemporary, the background a vibrant landscape of forest greens with yellow sun peeking through. Most artists of Enckell’s time would have had a bare breasted woman as the foreground subject matter instead. 

 

Hmm. Gay, perhaps, I deduced.

 

Resurrection (1907)

As I wandered into another exhibit room, I came upon Enckell’s Resurrection (1907), a religious study painting for an altarpiece for Tampere Cathedral. While religious art features considerable nudity, this work, in softer tones than Faun, doesn’t just feature a naked Jesus rising from a burial plot. Instead, there are five men, nude or semi-nude. Enckell seems to take license with the resurrection story and apparently the parishioners and clergy of the church in Tampare, Finland were liberal or oblivious enough to accept Enckell’s interpretation. As a casual museumgoer, I got a clear sense Enckell was pushing things into an intentionally provocative realm. The fact his study painting became a mural work in the church shows he succeeded.

 

Fantasy (1895)

I didn’t Google Enckell until I returned from my trip in Northern Europe. Ateneum held a special exhibit of his work in 2020, describing him as “one of the most significant names of the golden age of Finnish art.” Other works featured in the exhibition included a seated naked boy in 1983’s Boy with Skull, a shirtless young man in 1895’s Fantasy and a nude young man sitting up in bed in 1894’s The Awakening. Aside from the monochromatic Boy with Skull, these works seem to have homoerotic overtones. 

 

According to Wikipedia, citing a text in Finnish, “It is generally believed that Enckell was a homosexual, as seems indicated in some erotic portraits which were quite uninhibited for their time, but his homosexuality has never been officially proven.” Enckell is listed in Who’s Who in Gay and Lesbian History: From Antiquity to World War II where it is noted he had a son though he never married the mother and his “private life has aroused fairly little interest. His love affairs with men have not been denied but they have been considered irrelevant.” As it should be, if history didn’t note personal lives of artists in general. But such is not the case. 

 

The point is, my gaydar was activated as I regarded two of Enckell’s works. It seems affirmed by other paintings viewed online. I don’t actively seek out gay bars or gay activities when I go on vacation but discovering and further exploring the work of Magnus Enckell while visiting a Finnish museum was an unexpected bonus to the trip.

 

MEN EXPERIENCING ABUSE - A LONELY JOURNEY

Last week, CNN ran an article entitled, “25% of US men experience abuse, but it’s hard to get help.” The title—and the topic—gave me chills. I’ve been there, on the receiving end.

 

Regrettably, the article focuses solely on physical and sexual violence. Emotional abuse as a separate rather than a subset form of harm is not addressed. It’s what I experienced two decades ago in a seven-year relationship that started out seemingly perfect. I’ve blogged about it before, but it’s worth recounting in case someone else identifies with it.

 

In the beginning, it seemed I’d discovered the perfect mate. My partner was sweet. Perhaps too sweet. Six months in, a conversation arose—I don’t recall the circumstances; it was something minor, as always—where his Mr. Hyde side came out in full force. I was berated and belittled in a nonstop diatribe that was totally out of character and was highly disturbing.

 

He went off to work and I sat on the sofa, stunned, trying to make sense of what was not at all sensible. I got in my car and drove to a beach an hour away, spending much of the day wandering and wondering what I’d done wrong. How had I set him off? 

 

I knew innately it wasn’t my fault and yet it seemed easier to blame myself than to find flaws in him. Still, I kept teetering in trying to process the incident. Was this a one-off I should forget about? Was this the beginning of a new dynamic in our relationship? I’d already fallen in love with this guy. Was I supposed to leave? As outrageous as his temper had been, didn’t it reflect poorly on me if I ended things after the first rough patch? 

 

I stayed. This was my man. This was my partner for life. We hadn’t exchanged vows—couldn’t back then—but I was invested…“for better or for worse.” That was an expression we’d all grown up with. It was something I believed in. I was supposed to stick around. Stand by my man. I was supposed to work things out. 

 

Everyone who met my partner saw him as handsome and oh so charming. I’d found one of the good ones. A great one! He never ever showed his darker side to my friends, family or colleagues. 

 

The tirades became more frequent. There was no way to predict when they would happen. Out of the blue, something would trigger him and suddenly he was spewing a rapid-fire, mostly irrational monologue about how f#*king “useless” and “worthless” I was. I learned quickly that trying to refute his claims only escalated and extended the fits. I learned to just sit there and take it. 

 

Whenever it was over, I would be quiet. I would try to avoid him. He couldn’t understand why I was so subdued. He’d returned to Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Charming. What was up with me?

 

What I came to realize was that he had no recollection of these tirades. These moments were episodes of blackout rage. This made the incidents more challenging to process. I couldn’t talk with him about what he said after the fact because he didn’t believe he’d said such things. (I tape recorded one episode but never dared play it back, fearful it might trigger something worse.) 

 

For six and a half years, I lived in fear of what might come in the present day, maybe the next hour or even five minutes after a totally normal exchange. I told no one until a decade AFTER I’d managed to get out of the relationship when my best friend ran into him at a party and started saying how great it would be if we got back together. 

 

I felt so much shame. I felt I should have been stronger in somehow helping my partner who denied ever berating me. (His mother and sister both exhibited the same behaviors.) 

 

I should have left. 

 

I internalized all the comments about being worthless. I blamed myself. I sometimes told myself I deserved the abuse. 

 

The CNN article mentions that children or pets are used as wedges to keep the abused person in the relationship. In our case, we had one dog, then another. My bond with both dogs was far stronger than his and I feared that, in a breakup, he’d insist we split them.

 

I spent two years actively looking for a place I could afford on my own, far enough from him but still close enough to work. After what I knew was far too long, I finally found my strength and broke up with him. Custody of the dogs was not negotiable. They. Were. Mine. After all my fretting, it startled me how he didn’t put up the slightest resistance.

 

I found a house with a yard for the dogs. It was a ferry ride away from where we had lived. That gave me a clearer sense of separation. It offered a false sense of safety. (His mother told me he’d staked out my new place.) It also meant five hours of commuting to work each day. It further isolated me from friends. Still, I was as free as I could be. 

 

It would be another eight years before he stopped emailing me, begging to get back together. Each email startled and scared me. Would my continuing to reject or ignore him escalate his behaviors. Would physical harm come next? My freedom came with my own dark thoughts about what might happen next, about how maybe things weren’t really over…certainly not in his mind.

 

Physical, sexual and emotional abuse does happen to men. The CNN article mentions that 1 in 4 men experience physical or sexual abuse and, as with so many harms to men, the figure could be low because men underreport and often fail to get help. Men are still raised to believe they have to “tough it out.” They should be “strong enough” to handle things on their own. Seeking help is seen as a sign of weakness.

 

I know I should have walked away not long after that first rage episode. It truly was outrageous. If not after the first incident, then maybe the second or definitely the third. I turned to no one. I didn’t know who to contact. To this day, when I’ve mentioned the abuse to psychiatrists, they have not probed as soon as I’ve made clear the abuse was neither physical nor sexual. What I experienced has never been acknowledged. 

 

I hope professionals are better equipped with responding to all kinds of abuse men experience. If men still find it difficult to confide in a friend or family member, I hope that psychologists, psychiatrists and helplines know how to listen, support and advise better two decades after I struggled alone. Still, no one knows the harm unless the man reaches out and continues to try and try again if the first professionals fail to provide significant acknowledgment and support.

 

Just seeing the CNN article offers some validation. Abuse happens regardless of gender. Let anyone experiencing abuse get the help they need and deserve.

 

  

OK with PDA

I’m sixty but I’m still working on perfecting some moves I should have figured out in high school. 

 

My family moved from Ontario, Canada to East Texas just before the start of my tenth grade year. To say I experienced culture shock is an understatement. The social scene seemed to be on steroids. It was expected that students participate in sports, clubs and dating. Only weeks into the school year, I began feeling the pressure to ask a girl out, if not to one of the Friday dances that followed every home football game, then most certainly to the homecoming game and dance. 

 

Egad! Bigger but not
better homecoming
corsages in Texas.

The notion of a homecoming game in high school seemed particularly ludicrous.  Did people really return for a fall football game after graduating? (I think the answer may have been yes, but I had enough to focus on just trying to keep up with expectations for sophomores.) Let me offer what should be an obvious reveal: I did not get a date for the homecoming game in tenth grade; same for eleventh; and twelfth. I may have earned straight As in classes, but I failed where it truly counted. 

 

So no homecoming dates. No dates, in general. No “going together.” No exchanging class rings. No letting a girl wear my letter jacket. I did land a prom date after a couple of rejections, but we didn’t even last for the entire prom much less the after-parties (that I wasn’t invited to). 

 

Somehow I survived high school. And, no surprise, I’ve never returned for a homecoming game or any of the reunions. Just glad all that’s in the past. 

 

Even if being gay had been a thing back then—it most certainly wasn’t; NO ONE in my graduating class of 350 students was any form of queer—I would not have been dating. I was two years younger than my classmates, extremely introverted and blissfully immature.

 

The fact I never dated meant I never held hands with anyone in the cafeteria during lunch. I never sat on one of the benches in the school courtyard, my body pressed up against someone else like we’d had a Super Glue accident. I did not get caught kissing beside the smoking pit. I demonstrated no public displays of affection (PDAs). My roll-on deodorant would never have held up to that kind of test. Pit stains would have spread to soak my entire Izod shirt. 

 

When dating finally began many years later and far beyond East Texas (in Los Angeles), I still didn’t engage in much PDA. Dancing in the gay bars was always to fast-paced songs like “Vogue” or “Escapade” so the only touching on the darkened dance floor involved the occasional grope from a complete stranger. (The dim lighting hid my red face.) Between songs, our hands usually stayed apart, at our sides. Our lips only made contact with our drinks. The most public gesture between us tended to be eye contact which was hard enough to sustain. 

 

Outside of the clubs, the chance of PDA was even less. Whether we were spilling out of a club on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood or Davie Street in Vancouver, my boyfriend of the moment (moments albeit few and far between) seldom held hands, walked arm in arm, hugged or—gasp—kissed. I knew we liked or loved each other. I told myself we didn’t have any need to convey this to passing strangers. Public displays of affection were for the needy and the desperate. 

 

Look at us!

We’re SO MUCH in love! Can’t you tell?

 

Really, who needed to extend all that showiness of high school? Rings. Letter jackets. Clinginess.

 

A bigger factor in my restraint, I’d like to believe, was safety. Even in the gay zones, or perhaps especially in them, there was always a chance some straight guy or guys would react negatively to two men holding hands or—puke—kissing. Just walking by myself or with gay friends, I’d experienced plenty of drive-bys, windows rolled down, someone yelling, “FAGGOT!” or “DIE, QUEERS!” We knew not to laugh. Often, the shameful—shamed—response was to pretend nothing had just happened. Keep walking. Try to continue the conversation. And subtly scan the area to ensure witnesses were present in case the car looped around the block for round two, whatever that might look and sound like.

 

Maybe I should have gone to Pride parades more often whenever I was partnered. Generally, I figured I didn’t need to go under such circumstances. I had a boyfriend. Why not go for a hike, a weekend road trip or go to the nursery in pursuit of shade-loving perennials? Why stand in a crowd under the hot sun, craning our necks to clap for the gay swim team (in Speedos!) or the float with water bottle-toting go-go boys (in thongs!) throwing free condoms in our faces?

 

What I failed to consider was the fact these crowds were practice fields for PDA. Hand-holding, hugging and kissing didn’t carry any sense of danger when we were immersed in blocks and blocks of thousands of queers and allies. 

 

Hold my hand.

Hug me.

Kiss me.

Drape your arms around me.

 

We are SO MUCH in love…and this is a place to express that. Joy!

 

With most of my long-term boyfriends, we did find moments in public to show our affection. And, yes, I imagine it might have felt like tenth grade. Oh! My! God! We are holding hands! Still, these moments were few. Even more so, they were brief. The giddiness was more often expressed in my mind as, We were holding hands. Past tense always came quickly. 

 

Then along came Evan…

 

Evan is not an in-the-shadows guy, not in any environment. He has a distinct style. He always gets noticed based on what he’s wearing. Holding my hand is just something extra. And, yes, he considers it extra special.

 

I can learn from Evan. I do learn from him. 

 

On our first date, we sat opposite one another in a booth at a Mexican restaurant, sharing stories, laughing aplenty and feeling an undeniable attraction. At some point, he got up to use the restroom or grab us another margarita and, when he returned, he scooted into my side of the booth. 

 

Yes, two men sitting on one side of a booth, the other side empty. That definitely said something. For that evening, World, we were together. For longer than that? Hopefully.

 

Sitting there, side by side, that was our first clear PDA. One hour into knowing one another. This relationship would be different…if I allowed it to be.

 

Three years later, I am still a work in progress when it comes to public displays of affection. The whole reason for PDA is different from high school. In adolescence, there is a desperate need to be noticed in the right ways. I’m dating. I’m cool. I’m not going through this angst-filled developmental stage alone. I’ve got me someone. Whew.

 

The PDA between Evan and me is not “Get a room” PDA. It’s tasteful and loving, that’s all. If there is anything performative about PDA now with us, it’s more a celebration of progress made, not as a couple but as part of a movement toward normalizing gay relationships. Some straight couples rarely show affection; some regularly do. Same for gay couples now. 

 

More than that, the physical affection is for our own sake. We happen to be a couple that likes physical closeness. Evan initiates far more often than I do. There have been times when I have flinched…regrettably. We both read certain environments as potentially unsafe. I happen to have a broader concept of unsafe than him so my flinching or all-out pulling away is jarring to Evan. My mistake, perhaps. I do want us to make it home unscathed at the end of each day. My realm of the unsafe is shrinking. We have each other. We love each other.

 

Of course, we should be able to hold hands when we want. Same for sharing a hug. Same for a kiss. Our PDA is becoming more spontaneous. It’s genuine affection. It’s between us. It’s for us. Thankfully, it just feels right.                                                                                                                                               

SEX ON THE PAGE

As someone who is writing a gay romance, I’m reading a lot in the genre. Writers are told to read widely but they also must know their niche. They are expected to list two or three comparable novels that have already been published to some success. Not Danielle Steel kind of success—that comes off as arrogance—but titles with enough sales that a publisher can envision having a reasonable shot of turning a profit. It is a business, after all, and the bottom line looks better when black instead of red. 

 

I was excited to read Adib Khorram’s I’ll Have What He’s Having since I’d previously enjoyed his young adult novel Darius the Great Is Not Okay. I like when authors write in different genres, something I am also trying to do. The story is set in Kansas City, arising from a case of mistaken identity as Black sommelier David Curtis meets Iranian-American, career-hazy Farzan Alavi. As this is not a review of the book itself, I’ll skip plot specifics. This post is instead about the sex scenes.

 

Ooh! Sex!

 

As a kid, I stumbled on sex in books my mother read. When she’d go out, I’d skim in search of smutty passages. Yes, Mom and Dad, this is what happens when you don’t have the sex talk with your kid. This is also what happens when sex ed in school is limited to a speech about abstention and posters showing the ravages of venereal disease. My mom’s books weren’t very practical. There was a lot of reference to bosoms and the knight or prince’s engorged “member.” Reading proved only slightly more helpful than my father’s explanation that babies came “from love” and TV sitcom mentions of “the birds and the bees.” Obviously, storks delivered the babies but what did bees have to do with my privates? (I’d never heard of anyone getting stung there.)

 

Fortunately, for a younger generation that somehow hasn’t stumbled on porn, romance novels have become more helpful. “Sweet romances” keep things “lite,” sex defined as lots of hand holding, kissing and then abrupt openings to new chapters where characters suddenly feel like they might be in love. But, aside from a particular bottle of rosé and a homemade cake, I’ll Have What He’s Having is neither sweet nor lite. It serves sex on a platter. Had my mother had any interest in man-to-man romance and this novel been lying around while I was growing up, I might have taken notes. Khorram is more than generous with the details.

 

And, as an older reader who no longer searches for sex riddles in bird or bee talk, I don’t read sex passages in books to learn something new…though I did learn a few new terms (e.g., taint and bussy). (RIP, bosoms and engorged members.) As a teen, I was intrigued. Now, I’m squirmier. I’m okay with characters having sex. I just don’t need all the details.

 

Khorram provides plenty of details. So many that a readerly couple could use his sex scenes as scripted role play and there wouldn’t be any gaps to ad-lib. 

 

Color me red. But that squirming isn’t solely from discomfort; I’m bored, too. 

 

I’ve heard many times that, unless someone is going for erotica, a sex scene shouldn’t be gratuitous. It should take the plot forward, somehow changing one or both of the characters and their relationship. (Thankfully, Khorram’s sex scenes only involve couples.) And, yes, I see how things evolve as a result of each scene but, for all the bravado in trying to make the reader blush, Khorram’s scenes are too balanced in terms of turn taking. It made the sex scenes predictable. 

 

There are two more problematic points, however. First, prolonged sex scenes require the reader to play out some form of visual Twister in their head. It becomes rote. First, A placed his hand here. Then, B put his mouth there. Including all the choreography in a sex scene becomes needless work for the reader to imagine. It’s more tedious than titillating. The first sex scene in I’ll Have What He’s Having plays out over TWELVE pages spanning two chapters—that turn-taking thing. I really didn’t need that much sex Twister. I wish to assert a Donut Rule for sex scenes. Sure, a dozen pages of sugary sweetness may be tempting, but one or two is all I need for a sugar coma. I’ve gotten enough flavor and calories. Anything extra has bad consequences.

 

My Donut Rule is actually a more specific version of the wise, oft-quoted advice for writers: Less is more. 

 

Much less, in this case.

 

Again, I’m not trying to be the prude police (though, yes, I can be prudish). All the choreography only slows down the novel’s pacing. 

 

The second issue is that sex scenes can be overwrought in terms of how a writer describes the emotions. This is especially true in the romance genre where writers are building to a happily ever after. There seems to be an assumption that sex should be The Best Ever and, in reaching for that, unhelpful clichés emerge between the sheets. I’ll pull a few excerpts from pages 272-273 since, at this point, I’d had enough of the sex scenes and found myself distracted, picking them apart:

 

His skin was on fire, despite the room’s chill; his core was even hotter.

 

Electricity shot along his core as he relaxed…

 

Farzan rocked beneath him, thrusting slowly, making David see stars. “Oh, babe…”

 

Oh, no. Electricity. Seeing stars. I’m pretty sure Khorram uses fireworks somewhere in a sex scene but I didn’t care to skim to find the reference.   

 

It’s telling that the title of the book harkens to the most famous line from rom-com movie When Harry Met Sally. There, a fake sex scene plays out with Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal fully clothed in a delicatessen. When the characters finally have sex, we skip quickly to the Awkwardly Ever After as Harry lies wide awake in the bed, one leg draped over the edge as the character contemplates a quick exit. 

 

I never thought I’d say this in terms of sex but, as played out on the page, here’s to quick exits. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GRAY'S ANOMALY

Things are getting hairier. On my head. (Let’s not talk about ears, brows and nose, please.) As a woman said to me at the gym last week, I’m getting shaggier. She meant it as a compliment. I think. 

 

Yes, I’m letting my hair grow out to some proximation of my Big Hair ’80s era. My hair has certainly receded in the passing decades and it’s thinner but the top of the noggin is still well covered and, for that, I am grateful. I think bald men can be very sexy, but I tell myself my head needs hair. Too many moles hide underneath. 

 

They are still hiding, aren’t they? 

 

Hair insecurity makes me reluctant to look too long into the hand mirror that mostly gathers dust in the bathroom vanity. 

 

I’m letting the hair grow out while I still have hair to grow out. It means that the cleaner, closer-cut, left-parted haircut—I call it my “Swedish cut” after seeing so many immaculately, conservatively groomed men during trips to Stockholm—is giving way to big curls. The back of the head, in particular, is curling up. 

 

“Just don’t grow a mullet,” everyone says. 

 

The fact they say that makes me realize it is, in fact, looking a little mullet-y at the moment. Without hand mirror scrutiny, I believe I’m in the awkward phase of growing things out. It’ll get better, I keep telling myself. My hairstylist will have to clean up the neckline during my next visit. 

 

I’m also sprouting facial hair—mustache and beard. When I was twenty and in my first year of teaching—yes, in the ’80s—I grew a mustache to try to look older. I was a high school special education teacher and some of my students were a year older since Texas law permitted students to be enrolled in secondary school until they were twenty-one. I’m rather thankful I don’t have any photos from that period. I don’t think it was a good luck. 

 

This is the first time I’ve attempted a beard. I’ve sometimes been a lazy shaver, letting facial whiskers linger for up to ten days but then I’ve always felt uncomfortably itchy, causing me to lather up the shaving cream and revert to a smoother look. I’m now about six weeks into the beard. It seems as full as it’s likely to get. The itching has subsided. My boyfriend and my best friend are fans of the beard. “You look Scandinavian,” I am told. I will always take that as a compliment. 

 

So far, I’ve gone to the barber twice for beard trims with electric razors. (The thought of a blade trim worries me too much. I imagine myself flinching at the wrong moments and having my chin, cheeks and neck gushing blood.) The process is quite soothing and extremely detail-oriented. I imagine it’s something like having a massage…which I’ve never had. (The thought of my body being needed like bread dough is as appealing as a bloody blade shave.) 

 

Arr, Graybeard!

I’ve come close to getting rid of the beard several times. A few more days, I keep telling myself. I am conflicted by the look. While my hair is blond with some gray growing in, the beard is one hundred percent gray. I feel old. I look like a skinny version of Santa. (Am I even that skinny? Do kids I pass do a double-take. “Santa?!”)

 

Without the beard, I look considerably younger than sixty. With it, I feel sixty-five. I keep asking myself why I would sacrifice looking more youthful? What’s the beard’s appeal?

 

This weekend, my boyfriend, Evan, suggested I dye the beard and mustache. One box of Just For Men blond beard dye and—Bam!—I lost a decade. (Maybe more?) 

 

Somewhat blonder facial scruff...

So now I’m a big, shaggy faker. I have blond highlights in my hair and blond dye for my beard. I am relieved. I’d even say I am happy. I am no longer peeking into the bathroom mirror with dread. The beard will stay a while longer, at least.

 

The concern now is about whether I’ll know when to say my final goodbyes to all blondness. There will come a time when the color will look blatantly painted on, when people will see me for the blond fraud I am, an old guy trying unsuccessfully to look younger. I’ve seen it in other men and women. I just wonder if I’ll see it in me. Will I know when to let the dyes die? Will it take friends and family holding a hair intervention? Will someone slide an anonymous note under my door? “Today’s the day for you to go gray.”

 

For now, I believe I still have enough natural, non-gray hairs on my head to carry off the blond deception. When it’s all gray, may I have the common sense to let things be. Frankly, I think a full head of gray hair can be sexy, too. It can look distinguished. It can convey confidence. It’s possible, I have self-esteem issues around the terms sexy, distinguished and confident. Maybe the real work to be done is inside the head rather than at surface level.

 

  

SHAPE (Documentary Film Review)

I’ve seen a lot of mediocre documentaries since the introduction of streaming channels. They can be cheaply made, a series of interviews on a single set, a few cheesy reenactments, too often the key people not participating in the production, leaving the “truth” to be told by people two or three degrees from what actually happened. Because of this, I now make snap decisions, tuning out many a documentary within the first five minutes.  

 

Shape: When Idolisation Leads to Exclusion is an Australian documentary available for watching on YouTube that I may have given up on, but someone I respect as a deeper thinker recommended it to my partner, Evan, and so I decided to stick it out. I would watch it; Evan would watch it; then we’d come together to discuss over FaceTime. Being as we have a Vancouver – Denver long-distance relationship, our version of movie night can take a few days to unfold. 

 

Shape unfolds on a simple set, a stage on which six different queer people appear separately to offer their opinions on finding one’s place in the gay community and how one’s appearance plays a major factor in a de facto sorting system.

 

The interviewees, along with how they are identified in the film are: Miss Jay (drag queen); Stewart (casual model / dance party promoter); Stefan (Gen X, 55); Aaron (President, Vic Bears); Budi (intersectionality, equity and justice trainer; consultant; director, Ananda Training & Consultancy); and Glen (associate professor, La Trobe University / clinical psychologist).

 

Aaron, a self-described bear,
sees gay men as having
restrictive views on body shape.
He believes there is even
work to be done among bears.

Nothing in the film is earth-shattering, at least not for anyone who has been immersed in the gay community in the past several decades. From the film’s outset, I found myself nodding but wondering if I needed to stick with the ninety-minute documentary. It felt like listening to a new alphabet song—all familiar letters, just different rhythms and notes. 

 

And yet I stayed with it. I resisted the temptation to get up and tidy the living room or do the dinner dishes while the documentary droned on. I wondered if there might be a different take, however slight, when listening to a half dozen people immersed in, or at least exposed to, Australia’s gay scene.

 

“To be as diverse as we think we are,” Aaron says, “we need to get rid of the discrimination.” Hmm…the differences, if any, would be subtle.

 

Stefan, in his mid-50s, often
comes across as exasperated 
by ageism amongst gays.

The film is slow in the beginning. With half a dozen interviewees, it takes a while to get to know them. They have each been chosen to offer a slightly different take on gay inclusion, and lack thereof. Connection on film, just as in the gay scene takes time. For many a viewer, the familiarity of the gripes made about gay interactions may lead one to turn away—been there, heard that. 

 

Still there’s something to be said for the cumulative effect of six strangers, talking separately, yet echoing one another, delivering one consistent message: things are messed up. 

 

The film becomes most compelling when the interviewees are asked to read and react to Grindr profiles. In the virtual world, many do not even consider the pretense of politeness and acceptance. It’s brutal hearing profiles men have typed, saved and posted that boldly—and offensively—say this is what I want; this is what I don’t want. “This” is not a product, however; instead, it is whole groups of people. We know this about Grindr, but listening to the participants read and respond makes one want to auto-delete everyone’s profile. Grindr is too far gone. Is there a way to start over?

 

I had another reason to be hesitant in viewing Shape. The main topic is about an important one—how our looks, in general, and our bodies, more specifically—affect our integration into the gay community. I have an eating disorder. Too much talk over body ideals and body flaws can be triggering. I’m presently in one of my greater periods of struggle. One body shot or one phrase might hit me the wrong way and set me back even more. Because of this, I am grateful the film limits its images of body ideals at least until two-thirds in. One shirtless white model, who does not have a speaking part poses between interview segments. Then there is a model who would be called a twink, one who would be a daddy and one who is Asian, each of them fitting a proximation of a body ideal. By limiting the men and images, I did not become overwhelmed by notions of body perfection. 

 

When the film starts to talk about men portrayed on social media and in ads, there is a deluge of The Body Beautiful but by then I was invested enough in the film and I’d heard enough from the interviewees, each offering a form of support by saying this objectification and the higher stature it brings in the gay community are fucked up. 

 

Budi, who is of Indonesian
descent, makes many astute
comments about how gays 
discriminate over race, height
and views of masculinity and
femininity.

I didn’t reach for the button to close my YouTube window. I managed to watch the whole documentary without feeling any more messed up than I am. In fact, I went away with my feelings affirmed. Yes, the “community” has some growing up to do. The acceptance and inclusion we seek in greater society is often lacking within the Pride fold, particularly amongst gay men.

 

In general, I think gays are nicer people. We’re kind; we’re sensitive. 

 

Until we’re not. There’s the group mentality that I witnessed—and, yes, partook in—as I was coming out in the late ’80s. The gay bar was a sieve, washing away all the Not Good Enoughs, limiting everyone’s gaze to men with seemingly perfect hair, faces and bodies. Little things—a bit of body hair, a possible love handle, an underwhelming bicep—constituted reasons to overlook so many people. “Swipe left” culture existed long before the apps.  

 

I’ve often lamented that groups of gay men often go through a difficult journey—even now—in coming out, only to find rejection and cliquey behaviors in the very “community” that knows all too well about the struggle to be truly accepted for who we are. Why must we continue to dismiss and discriminate amongst our own?

 

Shape is worth a watch. Better yet, it’s worth watching with a partner and/or friends. While the messages are familiar, sometimes it helps to hear things from other people, offering another opportunity for reflection about our place in the “community” and what we can do or not do to stop us from swimming in the shallow end so we can explore deeper topics and people. The discussion that can arise during and after watching this documentary might cause some of us to rethink how we view our own, be it ourselves or our community. 

 

If you do watch it, feel to leave a comment or two about your thoughts. I’m curious to know what takeaways others get from the film.

 

 

 

 

THE WIN COLUMN

A writing colleague, a good friend of mine, is trans. We connect through FaceTime once a week to share a writing session. It starts with a check-in (How’s your week of writing going? What are you working on today?) and is followed by an hour where we disconnect and write before FaceTiming again to talk about how the hour went. 

 

They live in Seattle. As “safe” an area as any for someone who is trans in the United States but it’s still in the U.S. where Trump has already issued executive orders about trans in the military, trans girls and women in sports and trans healthcare for people under eighteen. I have sensed my friend’s unease with every phone call since the election. It’s hard not to feel targeted or to sense walls closing in.

 

For gay white cisgender men such as myself, the equivalent would be to live in a country whose newly appointed ruler issued orders banning gay marriage, gays in the military, gay adoption and discussion of anything gay in schools. If your tendency is to quibble over anything I mentioned that is not an exact equivalent, check your personal feelings and beliefs about people who are trans. How many do you know? Have you listened to them talk about trans issues? How much are you willing to be an ally and to truly include them in the Pride “community” we speak of every June if not throughout the year?

 

I have told my friend I will drive down to Seattle (or Olympia, the state capital) and rally alongside them. Just give me a date. I want them to feel my support is real, that there is substance behind my words.

 

Part of my frustration, however, has been that I’m not seeing rallies. I’m not hearing well-packaged soundbites like the highly effective, enduring “Love Is Love,” that helped people get behind gay marriage. I have not been able to point to an organization that is leading the cause to fight back and advocate for trans rights. GLAAD and HRC exist but their agendas are diverse and I’m not sure how many trans people see these organizations as representing their voices. I imagine trans advocates want trans people actually taking the lead. They need to be empowered while the rest of us, LGBTQ and otherwise, get behind them and lift them up.

 

I asked my friend, “What organization is leading the campaign for trans rights?”

 

I wanted the answer to roll off their tongue. There was a pause, but it didn’t take too long before they replied, “Maybe A4TE?” It was a tentative response. I didn’t ask them to explain what the letters and number stood for. I could do my own research.

 

Advocates For Trans Equality.

 

Not an organization known in households. Not yet.

 

A4TE.

 

A4TE.

 

A4TE.

 

A4TE, A4TE, A4TE…

 

I got it wrong a couple of times in the past week. Not rolling just yet. But I can say I’m getting familiar with the organization.

 

Advocates for Trans Equality is a merger of sorts, coming into being just last year after two organizations established in 2003 joined forces: National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) and Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF). Honestly, I’d never heard of either or, if I had, the names didn’t stick with me. Maybe I had just never made trans rights enough of a priority.

 

I spent an hour going through their website. At first, I was underwhelmed. This is it? That’s all? But then I subscribed to their newsletter and read the first one. I was emailed a link and listened to an excellent 90-minute webinar, “Trans Rights vs. Trump: How A4TE Is Fighting Back.” I started to feel more encouraged. The information is getting out there. A4TE is taking a lead.

 

A4TE, A4TE, A4TE.

 

One part of the website in particular resonated with me. When I scrolled down the ABOUT tab, I clicked on the first option, HISTORY, and reading through the web page, I came upon the heading, What We’ve Done, which begins with:

 

Over the last twenty years, NCTE secured over 100

federal policy changes in various agencies and

helped defeat hundreds of anti-trans state bills

across the country, and TLDEF saw major

victories and had unflappable persistence in

courtrooms across the country, having worked

on some of the most significant trans legal

victories in the nation.

 

The following six paragraphs offered specifics regarding what the separate organization accomplished before merging. There are significant victories arising from battling various institutions and the governments of the day. 

 

While Trump’s executive orders are setbacks and are clearly disheartening if not devastating to trans people and their families, the prior wins represent hope. Change can happen. There is an organization with a track record of victories. Defeats occur as well, perhaps fueling a sense of incensement that can rally people, but the victories motivate too. There are things in the win column. All is not lost. All is not dark. 

 

Hopefully, you will check out the website for Advocates for Trans Equality. I recommend subscribing to the newsletter. (The "subscribe" button appears at the bottom of each page on their website.) Read or skim the ones you have time for in your busy life. Perhaps mark them to be read later. 

 

I want the rallies. I want the “good trouble” the late Congressmen John Lewis mentioned. I want the court challenges. I want safety and security for people who are trans. I want more in the W column.